Rediscovering Reading: An Unexpected Consequence of the Pandemic

Pleasure Reading Vs. Obligatory Reading

I’ve always fancied myself a voracious reader, and indeed, until a few years ago, I was one. During my last grad school stint, I’d resolved to—and looked forward to—resuming my pleasure reading once I was freed of academic obligations. But then I finished grad school (thus ending a not-insignificant amount of obligatory reading, some of which was also pleasurable) and moved to China to teach high school. Alas, obligatory reading was replaced with equally obligatory (and more difficult to dodge) administrative tasks, some of which were even related to teaching, however tangentially. As banal and mindless as many of these tasks were (and are), they are strangely also mental-energy-guzzling. Additionally, I was dead set on exploring my new surroundings and immersing myself in the local language and society. Thus, I unwittingly downgraded my reading to the occasional in-depth news article and the history textbook from which I was teaching (pleasurable if redundant).

In Regards to Language, We Produce What We Consume

Unbeknownst to my blissfully ignorant self, this downgraded level of reading began having consequences. Time and again, I would convey to my students, however implicitly, that when it comes to language, we tend to produce what we consume. To speak well, one would do well to listen to appropriate (level, theme, etc.) content. To write well, one should similarly read accordingly. Yet I was not practicing what I was preaching.

The self, as is cliché, is supremely adept at rationalizing all manner of self-defeating behavior.We can be our own most gullible consumers of our own propaganda. And I became quite the spin artist myself in this regard. In short, lack of time was an easy excuse to employ and believe as justification for falling short of the standards I was setting for my students, most of whom were/are teenagers using a foreign language.

And Then Came COVID-19…

The COVID lockdown banished this theme (this idea of lack of time) from my mental talking points, revealing a paucity of others with which to replace it. (There may well be a lesson in this for spokespersons and ad types, which they doubtlessly mastered long before I arrived on the scene.) An otherwise bleak situation has thus manifested a silver lining of sorts, as we see from accounts of families and friends connecting in new and different ways, many of which are virtual—people rediscovering their true selves away from the artificial settings in which we spend so much time, whether by mandate or by deluded choice.

All this is to say that, in short, since the advent of COVID, I have rediscovered reading. My e-book library had already been expanding exponentially thanks to the downloading culture so pervasive in my new country of residence. Ooh, John Grisham! Salman Rushdie! Yes, please! I can’t wait to indulge…er…sometime…!

It’s now “sometime,” and I’ve been averaging around two, sometimes three, books per month since the onset of the pandemic. And to the extent that we produce what we consume, I’m also (re)discovering those rhetorical and literary devices that both motivate and demotivate me: Austen’s eighteenth-century dialogue, Nader’s dogged yet accessible deep dive into the automotive weeds, Hitchens’ penchant for channeling his oral voice onto the written page. As both a writing exercise and a mental exercise, what better way to (re)acquaint myself—and with an eye to, by extension, my students—with more positive uses of language than self-rationalization!

Rediscovering Ourselves

The lockdown has provided more than a few of us with sudden, unexpected “somedays,” an ideal period with which to delve into those parts of ourselves that have been hiding behind those other parts we choose so easily and self-righteously to prioritize. Much as we may yearn for days of crowded nightclubs and not-so-distant socializing, we may yet, once we get back to that point, yearn again for the seemingly unlimited blocks of time with which to engage ourselves in any way but that which “obliges” us.

And so it has come to be that not only have I rediscovered the joy of pleasure reading since the pandemic began, consuming books—from Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, interspersed with some of the season’s political tomes, including though not limited to Bob Woodward’s Rage, Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough, and Michelle Obama’s autobiography, Becoming, as well as some Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins—but I have also rediscovered a part of myself from which I had been disconnected for so long, consumed instead with obligatory reading and other responsibilities.

In addition, I’ve been reminded of one of the lessons that I seek to impart to my students: that in order to write well, one must read well. The two skills do, naturally, go hand in hand. I’m thankful for the opportunity to revitalize both sides of the literary coin.

What Will You (Re)Discover?

To that end, I leave you with this challenge: to use this time of social distancing and virtual gatherings to rediscover those parts of yourself that may have gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of pre-pandemic life. Life may be different now, as we avoid gathering in groups or traveling the way we once did, but we can use this time as an opportunity for personal development and rediscovery and, by extension, as an opportunity to rediscover the complementary joys of reading and writing.  

About the Author: Senan Mashat

Senan Mashat has been teaching language and history to high school students in China for the last five years, the sixth country in which he has lived and worked, having completed master’s degrees in both French and International Relations. Senan takes no offense at being called a “car guy,” a traveler (clearly), and a curious explorer and avid consumer of the various ways in which the rest of the world enjoys life.